Hello all,
*Update* I said I'd hope to have something ready for game 3, that isn't going to happen since tonight is game 3, but I have a new plan since I have no videos and no one has made any comments. I'll post something w/ some "fill in video here" and then hopefully you'll want to be in it. Probably not, but I'll try it anyway. *End update*
I really do think this could be a cool video. This will be my second video project. (You can find the first 2 posts down from this one, if you want to check it out. I'm pretty happy with it, but I still think I can do better) I have an idea for the what I think will be a really cool song. It will be a "mash-up" of sorts, but I don't want to get to specific because I don't want anyone to steal it. I think it would be best if you could videotape (capture, film, whatever the proper term is nowadays) your chant in a group, especially with some Pittsburgh scenery in the background (you may recognize lovely Ambridge behind me) but I'll use whatever I get. Unless I get too many, then I'll have to start getting choosy, but I promise I'll include as many as I can. So, send your clip to jdj912@gmail.com as soon as you can. As I said, I hope to be able to get it ready for game 3.
Hope to see you soon, LETS GO PENS!
-jdj
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Please help me if you can!
If you just want to see how you can help, but want to cut to the chase, click here and please visit the survey at the bottom of my blog. I really would appreciate your feedback.
That is a very desperate sounding title. I guess it's appropriate though. I am desperate. I have a dream for myself, a goal. I don't think its a very selfish dream. My dream is to earn my way in the world doing something that I love. Until recently, I never thought that it was possible. I've lived my life thinking the only way to make a living was to go to your job (whatever conventional job you best qualify for) and try to get a better job by going to college or getting your masters (whatever level you currently don't have), etc. I could do that. I've worked in various jobs in various industries and performed well in most. At my last job (which I had mostly accepted as my lot in life) I could have advanced to higher levels, if I had only had a degree (or was working on one, probably). This could be used as a theme in my life. Your life would be better if you just work hard and go to school. The only problem I've ever had with that theory is that I could never find any trade or subject to study that I had a true passion for, nothing I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing.
This brings me back to my original point. I have a dream and I've found a passion that I can pursue as a career. It's actually not the passion that is newly found, but the belief that it is something that I have the capability of pursuing. Music. I've always had a passion for music. My taste has changed over the years, but not my passion. I've always listened to the radio or the band at the bar and thought, I could do that. And better. But I never thought it was a realistic pursuit (after all, doesn't everyone think that).
The reason I'm not still at my last job is that I was laid off. After 11 years I was let go as part of the downsizing that was all the rage. No hard feelings Joe. Maybe on their end, but my problem with the plan they came up with was they let me go to keep someone who did less for them than I did and cost them more simply because he had a degree. I could be wrong about that and I'm willing to accept that I may not be able to see it objectively. I don't think so, but I'm willing to acknowledge it as possibility. Regardless, I was bitter. I looked for new jobs, but wasn't having any luck. Meanwhile, I had been trying to learn how to use Cubase and play music, just for the love of doing so. This is somewhat chronicled in earlier posts to this blog, so to cut to the chase, I've gotten good. Good enough that I know don't see any reason I can't make a living playing music. In some capacity.
This is my problem. This is where I need help. I don't know where to go from here. Conventionally, people start playing with bands when they're young, bounce around doing different things and make connections over time. Unfortunately time is not something I'm going to have starting Monday. At least no time for music. Today (as I write this) is Friday. I'm done w/ unemployment and the only job I can find right now doesn't pay as much, so I'm going to need more income. I know that somewhere out there, there is a gig for me, but I don't know where to find it. So far, I haven't figured out how to make those connections. In this day, it seems to me (I don't think I'm going out on a limb) that there is no faster way to make connections than the internet. So, I'm reaching out to the cyber-world. This is stage 2 of a multi-pronged stategy to illict help. If this is a well executed stategy, then you're reading this after viewing my video on Youtube that you heard about sometime after I posted links to it in every social media I can find.
Here is what I ask for from you:
Advice, criticism, suggestions, or promotion, in any combination
If you're in a cover band in the Pittsburgh area and need an extra player or singer;or you have a studio in the Pittsburgh area and could use an extra musician sometimes, send me an email or something.
If you got here, by way of a thread on a music forum and noticed something I was or wasn't doing that could improve the sound, or you like my potential and know something about online colaborating, send me a link.
If you're a friend of mine (either in real life or on any social media), you watched the video and don't think that I'm deluding myself, let me know what you think, share it with people, let me know what other people think. If you do, you don't have to say so, just continue to never say anything about it. I'll get the message.
If you're a celebrity that followed a link that I @mentioned at you and you've bothered to read all this, thank you. I'm a fan of your work and hoped you may see something in me, since I have a perceived connection with you or at the very least accidentally re-tweet it. However unlikely, if either of those things is true, I'd want you to know when I said I could do better than what was on the radio, I wasn't talking about your work. I only hope to get the chance to do something in music that's close to as good as whatever work you've done that inspired me to @mention you
If you're a music industry executive that would like to immediately sign me to a million dollar contract, I'll consider it. I'm open to any ideas.
I have a lot of ideas about things that I think that I would be able to do, but I need some direction. I think I've learned a lot in 2 years and I would hate it if now that I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel to my "destiny", I'd have to turn in a different direction. Thank you for reading this and (hopefully) your feedback. I (will) appreciate any help I get and just to let you know that if you do somehow help me become a big star, I promise I won't be an asshole.
-jdj
That is a very desperate sounding title. I guess it's appropriate though. I am desperate. I have a dream for myself, a goal. I don't think its a very selfish dream. My dream is to earn my way in the world doing something that I love. Until recently, I never thought that it was possible. I've lived my life thinking the only way to make a living was to go to your job (whatever conventional job you best qualify for) and try to get a better job by going to college or getting your masters (whatever level you currently don't have), etc. I could do that. I've worked in various jobs in various industries and performed well in most. At my last job (which I had mostly accepted as my lot in life) I could have advanced to higher levels, if I had only had a degree (or was working on one, probably). This could be used as a theme in my life. Your life would be better if you just work hard and go to school. The only problem I've ever had with that theory is that I could never find any trade or subject to study that I had a true passion for, nothing I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing.
This brings me back to my original point. I have a dream and I've found a passion that I can pursue as a career. It's actually not the passion that is newly found, but the belief that it is something that I have the capability of pursuing. Music. I've always had a passion for music. My taste has changed over the years, but not my passion. I've always listened to the radio or the band at the bar and thought, I could do that. And better. But I never thought it was a realistic pursuit (after all, doesn't everyone think that).
The reason I'm not still at my last job is that I was laid off. After 11 years I was let go as part of the downsizing that was all the rage. No hard feelings Joe. Maybe on their end, but my problem with the plan they came up with was they let me go to keep someone who did less for them than I did and cost them more simply because he had a degree. I could be wrong about that and I'm willing to accept that I may not be able to see it objectively. I don't think so, but I'm willing to acknowledge it as possibility. Regardless, I was bitter. I looked for new jobs, but wasn't having any luck. Meanwhile, I had been trying to learn how to use Cubase and play music, just for the love of doing so. This is somewhat chronicled in earlier posts to this blog, so to cut to the chase, I've gotten good. Good enough that I know don't see any reason I can't make a living playing music. In some capacity.
This is my problem. This is where I need help. I don't know where to go from here. Conventionally, people start playing with bands when they're young, bounce around doing different things and make connections over time. Unfortunately time is not something I'm going to have starting Monday. At least no time for music. Today (as I write this) is Friday. I'm done w/ unemployment and the only job I can find right now doesn't pay as much, so I'm going to need more income. I know that somewhere out there, there is a gig for me, but I don't know where to find it. So far, I haven't figured out how to make those connections. In this day, it seems to me (I don't think I'm going out on a limb) that there is no faster way to make connections than the internet. So, I'm reaching out to the cyber-world. This is stage 2 of a multi-pronged stategy to illict help. If this is a well executed stategy, then you're reading this after viewing my video on Youtube that you heard about sometime after I posted links to it in every social media I can find.
Here is what I ask for from you:
Advice, criticism, suggestions, or promotion, in any combination
If you're in a cover band in the Pittsburgh area and need an extra player or singer;or you have a studio in the Pittsburgh area and could use an extra musician sometimes, send me an email or something.
If you got here, by way of a thread on a music forum and noticed something I was or wasn't doing that could improve the sound, or you like my potential and know something about online colaborating, send me a link.
If you're a friend of mine (either in real life or on any social media), you watched the video and don't think that I'm deluding myself, let me know what you think, share it with people, let me know what other people think. If you do, you don't have to say so, just continue to never say anything about it. I'll get the message.
If you're a celebrity that followed a link that I @mentioned at you and you've bothered to read all this, thank you. I'm a fan of your work and hoped you may see something in me, since I have a perceived connection with you or at the very least accidentally re-tweet it. However unlikely, if either of those things is true, I'd want you to know when I said I could do better than what was on the radio, I wasn't talking about your work. I only hope to get the chance to do something in music that's close to as good as whatever work you've done that inspired me to @mention you
If you're a music industry executive that would like to immediately sign me to a million dollar contract, I'll consider it. I'm open to any ideas.
I have a lot of ideas about things that I think that I would be able to do, but I need some direction. I think I've learned a lot in 2 years and I would hate it if now that I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel to my "destiny", I'd have to turn in a different direction. Thank you for reading this and (hopefully) your feedback. I (will) appreciate any help I get and just to let you know that if you do somehow help me become a big star, I promise I won't be an asshole.
-jdj
Will work for food...
Not literally (I hope), but I am looking for work. The problem is I just don't know where to look. I don't have a lot of connections with musicians/producers in the real world, so I hope to find some connections through the web. So, I'll be posting a link to this entry on various forums in hopes of finding answers to various questions I have. If posting this violates any specific forum policy, I apologize. I will remove upon notification. (I'll be posting to several forums and though I will have looked, it's possible I'll miss something in the legal agreement. Those things are long)
My current most urgent questions are:
1) How far away from a professional sound am I?
I know that the audio file in that video above (or below, I may move it) is inadequate to use for a professional production, but the sound I have monitoring the mix in my DAW prior to exporting the mixdown sounds completely different (better) than the what you (and I) hear in the final production. I know that a lot of the difference is made up when it is mastered, but I don't have the time to learn to do that or the money to have something mastered to see.
2) Are there any good places to connect to free lance or contract production work? If so, what qualifications does one need?
Hopefully, I will have found the answer in one of the forums that I posted the link to and just not know it yet. I don't know though, because I don't have any formal musical or production training, but I have a demonstrable understanding of a wide variety of skills and learn quickly when it comes to new things (see just a quick note below). I know that one opportunity for income is selling original music for use in productions. That is something I hope to be able to do in the future, but I'm not there yet. That's why I ask the question. I'm sure somewhere there is someone willing to pay for help with some specific task that I could do, but I don't know what it is. Please, if you have any, pass some wisdom on. Feel free to post any advice here or back on the original thread you followed if you think it should stay there.
Just a quick note for what it's worth, one of the reasons it took longer was my original intent was to use Windows Live Movie Maker, but that was far more limited than I knew. So I had to learn how to use Sony Vegas in a day to make this video. (I think that should be worth something). I will update this post soon with more.
Any advice will be appreciated, thanks,
jdj
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